On the surface, it would seem the two candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Cumberland County district attorney have a lot in common.

Skip Ebert, the current DA, and opponent Jaime Keating each have a long history with the office. Both live in the Carlisle area. Both earned their law degrees from The Dickinson School of Law, before it became affiliated with Penn State.

Ebert, now in his second stint as the county’s top prosecutor, has been DA for a total of a dozen years and was the No. 2 man in the office for several years more.

Keating had a total of 25 years in the Cumberland DA’s office. That, however, was before Ebert removed him as first assistant district attorney last year. Keating is now a chief deputy district attorney for Franklin County.

Some have portrayed the race as a grudge match. There have been reports of tension.

Yet neither candidate is describing the contest in those terms. Keating, in fact, said he decided to run for DA months before Ebert stripped him of the job as the office’s second in command, a post Keating held for 12 years.

Both candidates are touting their experience in the courtroom, plans for community outreach and ventures to battle the deadly opioid epidemic.

Ebert, 71, said he’s running for election out of affection for the office. “I just love this work,” he said.

He proved that after former DA David Freed was appointed as U.S. attorney for the Middle District Court in 2017. Ebert opted to step down as a county judge so his colleagues on that court could appoint him district attorney. Keating also was among the candidates who sought to succeed Freed.

That appointment marked Ebert’s return to the DA’s office after a 12-year hiatus on the county bench. He previously served as DA from 1995 to 2005. He’s also a former prosecutor for the state attorney general’s office.

“I’ve been a prosecutor or a judge since 1982,” Ebert said. “I’m happy to be the district attorney of Cumberland County because the crime rates here are manageable.”

Initiatives he vowed to pursue if elected include sending his assistants to district judge hearings to try to resolve minor cases at an early stage, before they have a chance to clog up the county court docket. “Having been a judge, I know what the bottom line in these cases is going to be,” Ebert said. “They’re going to end in probation.”

He called for forming an elder abuse task force to target criminals who prey on senior citizens financially and physically and to educate seniors on how to avoid being scammed.

Ebert promised as well to increase the pressure on drug dealers whose customers end up dead from overdoses. He vowed to place added focus on prosecuting drug delivery resulting in death cases. “We’re going to try more of those,” Ebert said. He vowed to continue to employ the county’s Drug Treatment Court, which he founded while on the bench, as another weapon to get people off drugs and out of trouble.

Ebert declined to say why he removed Keating as first assistant DA.

Keating , 53, said he still doesn’t know why he was ousted from that job. Yet, he said, that isn’t the motivation behind his run for DA.

“I’ve run the office and dealt with the bureaucracy. What I bring to the table is I know what it takes to win cases,” Keating said. “I have a passion for justice and the will to take the case to court.”

He said he has prosecuted all types of criminal cases, from homicides on down the legal scale. Drug delivery resulting in death cases are on that list and would be a priority for him as DA. “I’ve prosecuted at least a dozen of those cases,” Keating said. “I feel we can’t lose ground on those because heroin and fentanyl are not going to go away.”

Keating said he organized efforts while first assistant DA, including beefing up the county drug task force, to combat the drug crisis, but claimed those initiatives have lagged since 2017.

He cited his experience teaching prosecutors across the state throughout the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association. He said one of his focuses is and will continue to be “protecting kids on the street and in the courtroom,” including when youngsters have to give testimony.

Keating said he has pushed for the creation of links between prosecutors, community centers, churches and other groups to reach out to senior citizens who aren’t in nursing home settings to warn them about how to avoid falling prey to scams and other abuse.

“Preventing a crime is as important as solving a crime,” Keating said.

The winner of the GOP primary will face the lone Democratic candidate for DA, attorney Sean Patrick Quinlan, in the November general election.

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